


A Christmas for Potter

by flutter



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2006-01-05
Updated: 2006-03-01
Packaged: 2017-11-12 02:18:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/485602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flutter/pseuds/flutter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Started for hp_kris_kringle challenge on Livejournal in 2005/2006.</p>
    </blockquote>





	1. The Gift

**Author's Note:**

> Started for hp_kris_kringle challenge on Livejournal in 2005/2006.

“Do you think he’s ready, Albus?” A dark-haired woman with square spectacles stood just to the left of the Hogwarts Headmaster. Her right hand sprawled, stretched much like a cat’s paw, out over his shoulder.  
  
Albus Dumbledore looked over the top of his glasses at her, a curious smile turning the corners of his mouth.  
  
“I have no doubt,” he said, his blue eyes sparkling, “that this year our young Mr. Potter will be ready—ready and willing—to accept this most special gift. It’s nothing quite as fine as the socks you gave me, Minerva”—he winked at her—“but I dare say he’ll find a use for it.”  
  
Her lips pinched together in a hard line. She often adopted this look, this set of her mouth, when deep in thought. Albus understood her; it was just her way. He had often thought that perhaps she didn’t smile as often as she should have. His eyes twinkled and he focused his gaze on the pearlescent glow in the bottles that lined a shelf on a far wall.  
  
“And you say,” she started, catching his wandering eyes, “that this was from his mother?”  
  
“I did say that, yes.” And for a man who was often full of words, he was suspiciously succinct.  
  
“Is there more to this gift than you’re letting on, Albus?” Her eyes grew wide behind the lenses on the bridge of her nose. The pupils contracted narrowly as she stepped to stand in front of him. “What exactly is this gift?”  
  
“This gift,” and he reached a hand inside a pocket of his robe, “is a memory.” He held a bottle out to her, its top stopped with a cork. The contents shimmered and threw flickers of blue light across Minerva’s face.  
  
“A mem—“  
  
Albus twisted to face the door. His face turned and his right ear lifted as though he were listening for something.  
  
“He is here, Minerva.” He moved to walk around her and stopped in the middle of the room. His hands clasped together in front of them, his face pleasant. “Has anyone ever called you ‘Min,’” he asked, his back to her.  
  
“I beg your pard—Min?” Her voice wavered on the name and before she could follow that up with a routine stare of acquiescence, a knock at the door echoed in the room.  
  
“Enter,” Albus said. From anyone else it would have sounded imperious, commanding.   
  
The boy who came in was not really a boy. Nor was he really a man. He hovered on the brink yet had the look of a wizened soul—had the look of someone who had lived quite a lot in very few years.  
  
“Harry.” It was neither a statement nor a question, merely an acknowledgement of who stood before him. Albus watched Harry shift in front of him; the dark mess of hair standing out, the eyes behind black rims curious.  
  
“You asked to see me, sir?”  
  
“It is not the policy of teachers, nor of the Headmaster, to extend gifts to students when the holidays are upon us. It gives those of a mind to stir trouble a chance to call favoritism. You, Harry, are my one exception. I will be presumptuous enough to say that what I’ve asked you to come and receive will be of great importance to you.”   
  
Albus turned to Minerva. She still stood behind him in the spot where they had previously been speaking. His smile extended the same time as his hand. She held the stopped bottle out to him and he palmed the delicate glass.   
  
“I often worry what it is a boy your age needs, Harry. This year, however, I am pleased to say that there will be no need for me to Christmas shop.”  
  
Palm held up in front of him, Albus raised the glass to Harry’s eye level. He watched the boy’s eyes reflect the shimmer of blue inside the bottle.   
  
“What is it, sir,” Harry asked without reaching for it.   
  
“It is a gift,” the Headmaster replied. His fist closed around the bottle. He turned and walked to stand next to Minerva where she had remained still and quiet. His eyes flickered from the blue that snuck through the gaps between his fingers to the green eyes that watched the light.   
  
“It is a gift,” he repeated. “A memory from your mother.”


	2. Caroling Ghosts and Pumpkin-Juice Jumpers

He couldn’t bring himself to look at it. The memory. It rested on the palm of his hand, cool through the bottle. And Harry could only stare at it. Dumbledore said—well, Dumbledore didn’t say anything, really. Nothing more than that it was from Harry’s mother. His _mother_.  
  
All that Harry could recall was nothing more than memories of reflections and echoes. Nothing from when she was alive. Of course he wouldn’t since she had died so—was this an answer then? Was this bottle holding a memory of them together? Maybe a memory of something more? His father? She and his father together?  
  
The corridors of the school were empty but for the sounds that were steadily growing as he neared the Entrance Hall. First things first, he would have to find Ron and Hermione.  
  
#  
  
“Albus,” Minerva said when her conjuring spell set forth a rail-backed wooden chair beside her. She took her seat while waiting for him to acknowledge her.  
  
Albus Dumbledore's face was, per usual, void of any of what ran through his mind. A particular trick, she admired, which was handy when the Headmaster was often too busy thinking and so easily forgetting that others were in his company. He turned to look at her, sitting ramrod straight on her seat, his eyes focusing on the grim line of her mouth.  
  
“I have never looked at the memory Mr. Potter has now received.” Dumbledore stepped behind his desk and sat, looking serenely over his glasses at her.  
  
She used to feel, in her first few year’s of teaching, a sense of unease when that gaze fell upon her. It was stilling and always seemed to make her spine prickle. A habit of sitting upright—prim and proper as young ladies should—seemed to overcome her as always; just one more in a series of mannerisms that she used to disguise the treacherous parts of her body that fired up when he looked at her.  
  
“But I assume you have ideas,” she said.  
  
“Naturally.” His eyes twinkled over the gold rims of his glasses and she sat up straighter.  
  
#  
  
Harry hovered at the archway that bridged the Great Hall and the Entrance Hall together. The ghosts of the Hogwarts castle floated behind him; each of them swam in an out of the holly and trees, singing carols in a round-robin chorus.

(sung to the tune of “Carol of Bells”)  
  
Hark hear the bells,  
pestering bells,  
what would they say,  
should we go away  
  
Christmas is here,  
bring us some cheer,  
the halls are so cold,  
says young and old  
  
Ding dong, ding dong,  
that is their song,  
they're pilfering,  
we're caroling  
  
One seems to hear,  
words of "hey, beer!"  
filling the air,  
ghosts everywhere  
  
Oh, how they sound,  
drunks hitting ground,  
on the quidditch field,  
our lips are sealed  
  
Grumpily they ring,  
while we all sing,  
songs of good cheer,  
cause Christmas is here  
  
Merry, merry, merry, merry Christmas,  
Merry, merry, merry, merry Christmas,  
  
On, on they go,  
floo takes them home,  
our joyful song,  
because they are gone  
  
Ding dong ding... dong!

A quick scan of the Great Hall showed Ron and Hermione sitting in their usual spot at the Gryffindor table. Hermione was animatedly chatting to Ron, her hands gesticulating madly in the air. Ron, meanwhile, was busy chewing on what was likely a bit of everything from his plate.  
  
Harry hesitated before moving to meet his friends. He watched as Ron raised a glass of whatever he was drinking to his mouth. Hermione, who was so emphatic with her gesturing, accidentally gesticulated right into Ron’s arm, knocking the glass into his face. The contents—what looked like pumpkin juice to Harry as he saw the hue of the drink—slopped over and ran down Ron’s chin and onto his jumper.  
  
A smile stole the thin line from Harry’s mouth. He pocketed the bottle with his mother’s memory inside his robes before walking over to them. He'd thinking about it some more. Make a decision later.  
  
Ron and Hermione were both red faced and clumsily sopping up pumpkin juice from the table and Ron’s clothes.  
  
“Hey, mate,” Ron grunted as he wiped his face with the arm of his sleeve.  
  
Hermione rolled her eyes at Ron before turning to Harry with a smile. “Where have you been? Dinner’s almost over.”  
  
“I was—“ Harry paused. He wasn’t sure if this was something he could share with them. It was his mother, his mother’s memory. That meant he had every right to share what Dumbledore just provided him, something that could, quite possibly, be the most personal gift he’d received from his dead parent’s yet. Right?  
  
“Harry,” Hermione asked tentatively. “Is everything all right? Is it—“ she leaned towards him, worry creasing her brow—“Is it Voldemort,” she finished in a whisper.  
  
Ron’s eyes widened and his mouth dropped open a little, showing he had returned to his dinner plate.  
  
“No,” Harry said quickly. “No, not Voldemort,” and he looked down at where his hands rested on the top of the Gryffindor table. He half expected them to be shaking, to show signs of the earthquake he felt inside of him.  
  
“Dumbledore wanted to see me—to give me something.”  
  
“Wi-uh-kismisgft,” Ron questioned, some of the food he had been chewing flew out of his mouth and landed an inch from Hermione’s hand.  
  
“Gross, Ron,” she said. Her nose wrinkled as she cast a cleaning charm.  
  
Ron swallowed with an audible gulp and looked at Harry without apologizing to Hermione. “Like a Christmas gift?”  
  
“Sort of, I guess. I mean, he _said_ it was, but…”  
  
Ron and Hermione looked at each other and then turned back to Harry.  
  
“What is it,” Ron asked.  
  
“He can tell us later, Ron,” Hermione snapped. Her voice softened when she spoke to Harry. “You can tell us later, right, Harry? Let’s grab you something to eat and get out of here.”  
  
“I just—it’s hard to say, but I—“ he couldn’t finish his thought. He wasn’t sure if there _was_ a thought to finish. He needed more time to think about it, to figure out if he wanted to see the memory while alone or—  
  
“Come on then, Harry. We’ll walk to the library. There’s a book I need to look at before I go home.”  
  
Harry nodded absentmindedly as he stood and let Hermione direct him back towards the bridge between the Halls.

 


	3. Mistletoe and Tulpas

“Have you heard of what the Tibetan Muggles call a ‘tulpa’,” Albus asked Minerva. The fingers of both his hands threaded together on his lap as he made to sit back and wait for her to respond.  
  
“No.” Albus’s lips quirked at her terse reply.  
  
“A tulpa,” he said, lifting his chin a little as he spoke, “is a creation of the mind; a being imagined and made corporeal by a focus of thought. It is, as she divulged to me, one of the subjects Lily Potter was researching with the Ministry before she and James were forced into hiding.” He paused when Minerva’s mouth set in a firm line. The pupils of her eyes thinned and flashed like a cat’s behind the frames of her glasses.   
  
“It may be rather far fetched of me to guess and, of course, I could be terribly wrong, but I believe this is what the memory touches upon.” His eyes sought Minerva’s and he smiled when he noticed the pupils contracted and shifted back into dark circles.  
  
“Mr. Potter—“ she started.  
  
“May be slightly disappointed,” Dumbledore interrupted. “I agree. I doubt, however, Lily would leave behind such an idea without leaving something of herself for her son to hold onto as he figures the message out. After all, ideas are powerful weapons, even if only in a memory.”  
  
#  
  
The three friends were quiet as they made their way to the school library. They didn’t even break the silence to say hello to fellow students as they met no one in the halls. Harry was the first to say anything when they reached the doors to the library.  
  
“A memory,” he said. His voice didn’t sound natural to his own ears but his friends didn’t react to the way he said the words.  
  
Ron turned to him, his freckled face screwed up in puzzlement. “Memory? What are you on about, mate? The reason Dumbledore called you to his office?”  
  
Harry nodded.  
  
The library doors began to swing open into the next room then stopped as Hermione turned and took a step toward Harry. “What is the memory of, Harry,” she asked softly.  
  
“My… mother.” Hermione’s breath escaped in the form of an “oh” while Ron continued to look puzzled. “I don’t know what it’s about or what it’s of… he just said it was from her.”  
  
Neither of them said anything as they stood in front of the open doors.  
  
#  
  
“And you think this has something to do with Voldemort?” Minerva never doubted the line of logic that Albus followed. He was, after all, one of the most powerful Wizards in the Wizarding World. It followed then, in her mind, that it didn’t always matter how he reached his conclusions, only that he managed to form the right ones.  
  
“I believe, ultimately, it has everything to do with Harry,” Albus said. “That is not to say I do not believe there will be a use for it when it comes to defeating Voldemort. In fact I believe the exact opposite: this information could, were Harry to use it to his advantage, aid him in that struggle.”  
  
The two sat in silence, both thinking of Dumbledore’s words and what could come to pass. The seconds ticked, the minutes tocked and neither were really aware of the darkening night sky outside the windows until the chime of a new hour rang.  
  
“It’s getting late, Albus.” Minerva stood and her chair fell to dust at her feet. A wave of her wand and the dust disappeared.  
  
“Yes,” he said.  
  
She stopped at the doorway that lead to the stairs behind and turned back to face the Headmaster. “Will he understand?”  
  
He made no sign of answering her question but merely stood from behind his desk and walked towards her. When he was but a step away he reached for her hand with his own and brought it to his lips. She withdrew her hand from his and held it with her other, held it to her chest as she watched him with wide eyes.  
  
In answer to her unasked question he reached above her and plucked a sprig of mistletoe from the curved framing of the door. He tucked it in her hair, behind her ear, and smiled.  
  
“He will understand because he is _meant_ to understand.”


	4. The Shrieking Shack

Harry, Hermione and Ron left the library soon after Hermione realized the book she wanted was missing. Both boys kept their lips clamped together, only occasionally sneaking amused glances at each other, while Hermione went on to furiously bad-mouth the cataloging capabilities of Madame Pince.   
  
Hermione's tirade ran out of steam as they reached the Entrance Hall.  
  
"Where are we going," Harry asked her. She was standing with her back to them, facing the wonderland of snow that glittered the tiniest fractions of the sun's rays.   
  
She didn't turn around but with one hand hefted her book sack higher on her shoulder and started to walk towards the Hogwarts grounds.   
  
Snow crunched under her feet, leaving behind an impressed path behind her.   
  
#  
  
Minerva McGonagall walked down the forty-two steps inside the moving staircase that lead to Dumbledore's office. She could have stood still on one step and let the staircase twirl her until the hall was revealed. That seemed a terrible waste of time—just standing about when she could be _doing_ something instead.   
  
It wasn't that she questioned Dumbledore's methods regarding the Potter boy. For as long as she'd known him he had always acted in the same manner. She was simply worried for the boy and all too aware of Albus's quietly played game of _Who Knows What?_ which, in her mind, rankled. He rarely confided everything he knew to her; not that she expected him to.  
  
The staircase opened at her presence and she stepped into the hall outside the stair entrance. She turned to her left to follow a path her feet had taken numerous times, where the nearest moving set of stairs would shift her directly to the outside of her office.   
  
In her haste, she didn’t realize that the fingers of her right hand absently traced the skin of her left where Dumbledore’s lips had pressed.  
  
She would watch Mr. Potter, that’s all; she would watch him as a Mother Hen would. It was her duty to insure, not only his physical safety, but his emotional health as well. Wasn't it? Really, there was no other course of action left to her.   
  
#  
  
The boys trudged in Hermione's wake. Their shoes were soaked through from the snow. The ice-turned-liquid broke around their ankles and toes in cold, squishing compliance as they walked.   
  
Hermione still had yet to answer Harry's question on where they were going, no matter how often he repeated it at the back of her head. Frankly, he was quickly growing bored of her assumptions that where she led, they would follow. Even Ron's protests were growing from snotty mumblings to louder accusations of Hermione being a sadist.  
  
Just as Harry opened his mouth to say something, though, she stopped walking. He hastily halted, nearly running into her because of the suddenness with which she stopped. But Ron _did_ run into her and, of course, started to sputter.  
  
Harry and Hermione both waited a moment, Hermione rubbing the top of her head with a gloved hand, while Ron’s face turned red from something more than the cold. He blustered incoherently with apologies of “Sorry, ‘mione, I umm… you stopped, you know? And I was watching your… and _wow_ and then _wham_ , stars, but I didn’t mean to hit you,” then finally, with a huff of impatience from Hermione, he finished, “Well, you shouldn’t stop without warning a bloke, you know?”   
  
Hermione glared at Ron, who was still mumbling (except now he raised his hand and rubbed at his chest where he bumped into her), then she turned to Harry. “We’re here, Harry,” she said.  
  
“Here,” Harry repeated.  
  
#  
  
Albus Dumbledore opened one of the numerous cabinets in his office. He often looked through the drawers and doors of bottles and tools and instruments of magic. Most of the time he had no real purpose with the tinkering. He just enjoyed hearing glass chink and the methodical counting and placing helped ease his mind when a pensieve wasn’t in order.   
  
It was often the case, too, that he believed himself so far ahead of the game, that he just had nothing to _do_.  
  
His fingers brushed the side of one particular cork-stopped bottle. It was the same pearly blue that filled the one he gave Harry. He hadn’t forgotten he had it—he had simply misplaced it. That was often the case when you accumulated as many items as he did. But he neglected to remind himself in as many years as it had been, to find this particular bottle.  
  
In his hand it felt cool, just as cool as the one he gave Harry, but it was, perhaps, a bit brighter; the memory within it colored by age and the memory’s owner.  
  
Had it really been almost eighteen years since he corked the memory of Lily Potter’s visit? Eighteen years—before she and James went into hiding; while she was still pregnant with Harry; before Sybill Trelawney’s prophecy.  
  
Eighteen years. Well, that had certainly been long enough.


	5. The Pensieve

Harry looked around. He had thought maybe she was taking them to the lake. They had before made a short habit of walking around it to talk when Ron and Harry weren’t getting along. But the sight before him was not of the lake. The sight before them was, in fact, of the Whomping Willow.

“What are we doing here?” Harry wearily eyed the Willow as the three of them spread out next to each other, looking at the dark mass in front of them. The branches and limbs quivered in what Harry thought might be anticipation of a chance to whomp something.

Hermione turned and gave Harry the type of patient look one would often use when dealing with a St Mungo’s memory-modification-gone-wrong resident. “You’re going through there,” she pointed at the Willow, “and then to the Shrieking Shack. You’ll have the privacy you need if you wish to look at your mother...” she faltered. “Well, look at what Dumbledore gave you.” She made a point of catching Ron’s eyes before turning back to Harry. “Ron and I will stay here and wait for you. You should do this alone, but you’ll nee—“

“No,” Harry said, interrupting her. “You two are coming with me.” He smiled at them both. He realized that his decision, although abrupt, was the right one when a weight the size of Grawp lifted from his chest. Harry looked from one to the other and nodded at Hermione’s questioning look. “Yes,” he said simply.

“Very well,” Hermione replied. Her face twisted with a succession of emotions and Harry knew she was trying not to look too pleased. She picked up a large, fallen branch from the ground and Ron moved to help her. Together they prodded a knob on the Willow’s trunk that left the tree immobile. They stepped aside to let Harry lead the way down into the hole that appeared.

#

In her office were walls lined with books, award plaques and a row of small biscuit-tin towers. Minerva stood in front of one particular bookshelf that was head-to-toe full of Muggle books that Albus insisted on gifting to her on every birthday. The tins were from him as well but she wasn’t on a search for the buttery treat she often indulged in.

She surveyed a particular series of books on myths when she found one that looked promising: _Culture-Based Myths, Uses and their Consequences_. She removed it from the shelf and flipped it open as she walked around her desk and sat down.

Before examining the contents she paused long enough to pick up her wand. With it she drew a circle in the air to the right of her. “Aperio Speculum,” she said and the air within the drawn circle broke into a series of waves. The waves broke into static and they slowly became something else, fuzzy though slowly tuning sharper, much like a television would.

A scene that was definitely not taking place in her office appeared. Three figures were hurdling down a hole, hitting a very earthy ground before rising to their feet. One of the figures, a mousy-brown haired girl, stood and directed the other two figures, both boys of differing heights and coloring, toward a shabby room.

“That’s clever, Ms. Granger,” said Minerva to no one before turning to focus on the book left open in front of her.

She scanned the pointed index finger of her right hand down a column in the list of contents.

“T-U-L-P—“ and she tapped the paper where her finger stopped. “Tulpa.”

#

Once inside the Shrieking Shack, Harry, Ron and Hermione stood in the middle of what could loosely be described as the living room. Neither of the three said a word, choosing to just stand in silence, rocking back and forth on the balls of their feet or casting sidelong glances at each other.

Hermione breached the silence with a grunt as she laid her book sack on the ground at her feet. She rustled through it as the boys stood watching her. Finally, with an “ahh” of satisfaction, Hermione stood. Unfortunately, the presentation of what was in one of her hands was left overlooked, as when she stood up straight, she just so happened to cover the majority of her hair and face with spider webs.

Ron giggled in an octave higher than his natural voice and he shuffled backwards into a web-covered support beam. He twisted to look at what he ran into, hands up as if to brace himself, when he stumbled face first into a spider web, eyes wide and mouth open in a silent scream of terror.

Harry was torn between which of his friends to laugh at the most. The warning look that Hermione shot him only incited more of the snorting, choking fits as she calmly removed as much of the webs from her face and hair as she could with one free hand. Ron, meanwhile, was lying on the floor, whimpering.He scratchedat his mouth and tongue, clawed wet fingers at his eyes,to try and remove the webs that he dove into.

Hermione loudly cleared her throat and Ron stopped pawing at his tongue long enough to focus his attention on her. Harry wiped the tears of laughter from his face and blinked rapidly to dry his eyes.

“If you don’t _mind_ ,” she said with all the haughtiness one could muster with wisps of web clinging to the sides of their head.

When Ron and Harry were able to control themselves they obligingly looked at her. Each waited for whatever it was she obviously felt required her to stand over them. She glowered down, with a very McGonagall pinch to her lips, as they made to stand up.

“This,” she said as she narrowed her eyes at them, “is what we’re going to use,” and she handed a rather small bowl to Harry.

He turned it over in his hands. It was hardly bigger than the salad bowls his Aunt Petunia gave to the family at meal times. Though it looked ordinary, it weighed his hands down with a measurable heft, and when he held it out to Ron he nearly dropped it.

“Use for what,” asked Ron, his face screwed up over the detail of inscriptions underneath the base of the bowl. Harry hadn’t thought to look underneath but, and he covered a snort with a choked cough at the thought, neither had Ron, really. Ron only saw the bottom because Harry damn near dropped the thing.

With an air that was condescending with it'spatience, Hermione grabbed the bowl from Ron and traced the tip of her wand around the circle of lip. When the bowl began to shine white, sparks shot off and around it like a holiday sparkler. Harry grabbed Ron’s shoulder and stepped back. The sparks dissipated, leaving behind a blue-white light that illuminated from within the curvature of the bowl, and the air rang with what sounded like small wind chimes.

“Hermione—“ Harry started. He couldn’t _believe_ it. He couldn’t believe _her_. “Is that a…” His voice trailed off and neither spoke as she waited for the chiming sound to settle into a hum, for the hum to settle into silence.

Harry could only watch as Hermione looked to Ron and found him staring from the bowl to her. Ron’s eyes were wide with knowing but his face, contrastingly, looked puzzled.

“It’s a pensieve,” said Hermione and she placed the bowl-now-pensieve in the center of the roomwhere they all, as one, slipped into kneeling positions around it.


	6. Lily's Visit with Dumbledore

Albus Dumbledore peered over the edge of his pensieve into the blue-white light that shimmered in the etched, glass bowl before him. The blue dissolved into yellow, the yellow dissolved into white and the white broke apart to reveal shades of red that cascaded down around two willowy shoulders.   
  
Lily Potter stood in the pensieve, just as she stood when she had visited him that day: her legs a foot’s width apart, her hands on her hips and her eyes filled with conflicting, leaping flames of both rage and worry.   
  
“You have to promise me, Albus,” he remembered her saying, moments before her voice broke from the pensieve on an iridescent bubble.   
  
“Lilia—“ he began, his voice popping forth from the scene below, and Lily’s voice interrupted his, “You have to promise me that if this doesn’t work you’ll do everything you can to protect him.” Her voice cracked and she choked back a sob with a hand to her mouth.   
  
The present-day Dumbledore watched as she lowered her hand and looked up, watery-eyed, at his past self. Present-day Dumbledore mouthed the words his past self then said, “I’ll do everything in my power to protect him, to guide him, but—“  
  
“That won’t be enough,” she shouted. Her hands rocketed from her hips and landed on his desk. “That. Won’t. Be. Enough,” and her voice strained to whisper. “You _have_ to show him what I gave you. You’re the only one I trust—the only one I _believe_ in enough—to help Harry.”   
  
He dabbed at his eyes with a handkerchief before placing the tip of his wand over the pensieve. His hand circled over the top, spinning the mist that rose above the bowl, The memory twirled in on itself, speeding forward toward another moment of Lily’s visit.  
  
Albus sat in his chair to keep himself from diving headlong into the pensieve.  
  
“And you are certain,” he heard himself say, “that this information on the tulpas will somehow help Harry.” A lengthy pause filled the air and Dumbledore closed his eyes against it. “Of course you are, forgive me,” his voice popped from the pensieved memory.  
  
“If for no other reason”—Lily’s voice rang sharply around the lip of the bowl—“then because my work has a purpose. If this were to be leaked—if people were to find out that tulpas are not just myth and lore—then I despair at what it could be used for.”  
  
In Dumbledore’s mind he recalled an image of Lily shaking her head.   
  
“Sybil Trelawney wasn’t the only Prophet to speak that night, Albus, but the Witch who prophesied to James and me was not vague with her remarks.”  
  
#  
  
Harry and Ron looked at each other for what was, likely, the twentieth time since falling to their knees around Hermione’s pensieve. Each face, turned toward the other, was half-illuminated in the blue-white of the light, fully illuminated when they would turn to stare down at Hermione who was bent over the bowl.   
  
“Everything looks to be in order,” she said. Her bushy hair blocked their view of the pensieve. When she sat up straight, her eyes fell on Harry and they softened slightly when she smiled. “This is it, Harry. This is how you’re going to find out what your mother wanted to tell you.”  
  
Harry gulped, sure it echoed in the dusty, dank living room of the Shrieking Shack. “How did you do this,” he asked her. His mouth hung open, slack in awe, at Hermione’s casting abilities. It shouldn’t surprise him—she shouldn’t surprise him—but he was. He looked at Ron; Ron who, apparently not hearing a word of the Harry and Hermione’s small talk, openly gaped at the girl before him.   
  
“It’s not important how, Harry,” Hermione said. “What’s important is that it exists.”  
  
“’Mione,” Ron said, a note of disbelief in his voice. “You. Made. A. _Pensieve_.”  
  
“Really, Ron, catch up.” She rolled her eyes when Ron continued to stare at her, then turned to Harry. “So, Harry, what’s the next step?”  
  
“Next Step?”  
  
“Harry,” she said, obviously annoyed, “you’re the only one of us that has used a pensieve. _Speculums and Pensieves: A Guide to Faithful Depiction_ outlined the process, but you have the practical experience.” She leaned forward again and cupped the pensieve in the palms of her hands. With a slight turn, the pensieve was positioned, with what had to be the front of it, facing towards him. “So, what do we do from here?”  
  
Harry’s hand was inside the pocket before he realized it. His fingers clutched the glass until he held it tight inside a fist. He held it in front of him, slowly opening his hand to stare down at the bottle. Was he ready for this? Was he _really_ ready to see his mother? To find out what she left for him?   
  
His fingers gripped the cork that stopped the bottle and, with a quick tug, it popped free. Harry turned to Hermione, who only nodded her head and stared down at the pensieve. Leaning forward over the small bowl, Harry hesitated. The bottle stilled, mid-tilt, and Harry looked back at Ron. His friend wasn’t staring at the pensieve any longer, wasn’t starting at Hermione in disbelief; Ron was watching Harry’s progress, Harry’s face, with open concern. Harry searched Ron’s eyes but Ron, having noticed Harry’s hesitation, nodded at Harry, nodded towards the pensieve, and said, “Go ahead, Harry. You’ve been waiting for this since you came to Hogwarts.”  
  
On the end of a deep breath, Harry tipped the contents into the bowl.


	7. The Second Prophet

“Sybil Trelawney wasn’t the only Prophet to speak that night, Albus, but the Witch who prophesied to James and me was not vague with her remarks,” she had said.   
  
_Sybil Trelawney wasn’t the only Prophet to speak that night…_ that was true. Dumbledore knew as much; Dumbledore knew too much. So much of what Harry needed to know rested with him, and there was so little time to share it with the boy.  
  
 _But the witch… was not vague with her remarks._ No, she hadn’t been. James had risked everything by contacting Dumbledore before he and Lilly were whisked off into hiding. James Potter’s message came to Dumbledore, by hoof and prong, on the wind of magic. “Albus, a Seer has given us warning: Harry will be alone, the only one capable of defeating _Him_. We must speak.” And speak they had. Sirius Black had leant Dumbledore his two-way mirror, an identical mirror already owned by James.   
  
In the few days before Voldemort eventually killed the Potter couple, then failed to kill their son, James and Albus devised a plan to help keep Harry safe, if it were needed. Lily, always beside James during conference, reminded Dumbledore of their meeting with the shortest of nods.  
  
Albus Dumbledore could only nod in return.  
  
#  
  
Harry had stood up from the crouched position he, Ron and Hermione had taken around the pensieve. A line on the floor of the room appeared—his pacing had caused the layers of dust to be disturbed where each foot fell. He stopped feet away from them both and stared down at his two best friends.  
  
“Right,” Harry said, and he nodded, his head bobbing as though he had no control.  
  
“Right,” he said again.  
  
“We don’t have to talk about it right now,” Hermione repeated. She had told him this at least three times in the last five minutes, and it was all Harry could do to not glare at her over the rim of his glasses.  
  
Ron was quiet. He remained sitting in the position he had taken nearly thirty minutes before, not looking anywhere but at the light that the bowl emanated. The light that had shone the brightest blue he had ever seen in the earlier moments when Harry’s mother’s memory shone up at them.  
  
“Ron?” Harry stepped to Ron’s side, gingerly touching the toe of his shoe to a patch at the knee of Ron’s corduroy pants. To look at him, Ron had to lean back and look up as high as he could. If he had been standing too, he would have had to look down at Harry, but Ron slouched when he sat. When he finally spoke he didn’t seem too sure of his words, “You have to, Harry. You have to know that your mother wouldn’t give you so much if you weren’t the only one who _could_.”  
  
“Mmpf,” Harry said, which could have meant “Sure,” or “Bloody Imbecile,” but what it most likely meant was, “Cheers, Mate. It’s all right for you to say that, for my mother’s memory to pop up as if she were here, and tell me, ‘Harry’s going to be the one to bring down Voldemort,’ Tulpa this, bloody tulpa that. Which, hello, I already knew. Only now I can’t stop thinking that I’m just a feckin’ _kid_ and who am I to be killing anyone?” In fact, that’s exactly what it had said.  
  
Ron and Hermione nodded together, in time with the metered gesticulations of Harry’s arms.  
  
#  
 _Eighteen years ago._  
  
Lily and James Potter welcomed Madame Vérène into their home when the witch arrived on their front step. The woman was as elegant as her name and as arrogant as a pureblood could be. Her attire, which was probably made of the finest silks and cottons, spoke of French wealth, and her voice drifted to them, accented only enough to display that she was a Lady of Culture, rather than one simply getting by on stereotype alone.   
  
Without removing her cape, which shone in the darkest of green satins made anywhere, Madame Vérène sat where they gestured. Lily glanced at her briefly before noticeably shifting her gaze to where the cape’s hood still sat ontop of Madame Vérène’s head. Madame Vérène ignored her.  
  
“I ‘ave come as you ‘ave requested, Monsieur Potter.” And the way she said “Potter”—Po-tare—made Lily flinch just enough for her husband to take notice and squeeze her hand in his larger one. Madame Vérène looked directly at James, her piercing eyes never quite meeting Lily’s.   
  
“My Wife,” and James looked up at Lily, his heart in his eyes, “was the one who actually requested this meeting.” He turned to face the woman who sat opposite him and, with only a look, dared her to contradict him. A red spark flashed behind his glasses before they shifted back to their sea-storm hazel.  
  
Madame Vérène blanched under James Potter’s brief flash of warning. “But of course, Monsieur. I did not mean to suggest otherwise.” She sat taller in her seat, the fine material of her cape not touching the fabric of the chair’s back. “You both ‘ave asked me to your home to divine for you—“  
  
“For our son,” Lily corrected, interrupting her and Madame Vérène’s lips started to peel back to show her teeth at the mudblood’s nerve to interrupt her. But when she felt her face contort, she forced her mouth into a grim line before agreeing.   
  
“Oui, for your son.” Madame Vérène straightened the line of her skirt as she crossed her legs. She pursed her lips in a haughty, thin-lipped pout before finishing with, “and this I willingly do,” though she clearly didn’t. “You ‘ave requested me, specifically, for my gift. And for you I will provide you with a general outlook for your son’s well-being.”  
  
Neither of the Potter’s made any indication to speak, so Madame Vérène drew back the hood of her cape to reveal a dark amber head of hair. She looked at the couple—at James who sat comfortably in the chair across from hers, very much like a lion after a full meal. The glint in his eye denied the truth of that image, and told her he was keenly aware of every move she made. And finally, and with some unease, she looked at Lily, who stood fierce and, at that moment, wild, beside James, her hand in his. Madame Vérène would not be surprised if the wind were to whip around the mudblood, coiling the woman’s hair into a mane that shot electricity crackling around the room.  
  
It was an effort to look away from the other woman, to not see her in the image that soiled her mind. Tilting her head back, Madame Vérène asked, “shall we begin,” and closed her eyes.


End file.
